Vast Graveyard Emerges Near Tel Aviv

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient Canaanite cemetery south of Tel Aviv but have yet to find the city in which the buried Canaanites lived.

At least a thousand Middle Bronze Age II (c. 2000–1750 B.C.) skeletons have been uncovered in sand dunes bordering the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon L’tzion. Particularly poignant was the discovery of a woman still holding a child. According to Yossi Levi, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologist who led the excavation, this is not unusual. “There were a lot of family burials of children with parents, but we can’t be sure that the children and adults were related because we haven’t done expensive DNA testing,” said Levi.

In addition to the human remains, the excavators recovered pottery, jewelry, and weapons, such as axes, daggers and knives. Horses and donkeys were also buried in the cemetery, a common practice during the Middle Bronze Age.

The 4,000-year-old graves fall into two types- pit graves and shaft tombs. Pit graves were designed for 1 to 3 bodies, while shaft tombs were for up to 40. Excavators were particularly excited by more than 200 scarab rings ornamenting the fingers of the dead in the shaft tombs.

Read the rest of Strata: Canaanites in Suburbia in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.